The zone is one of the most exciting and sought after elements of sports performance. That space where the athlete is on fire, performing brilliantly and enjoying every moment.
When athletes get in the zone they feel and perform their best. They are hyper focussed, acutely aware, highly responsive, skilful in action and fully immersed in the moment.
And it’s not just athletes who thrive when they’re in the zone. Writers, artists, musicians, actors, dancers, and coaches alike can find themselves in that flow state.
The zone can be reached by anyone engaged in meaningful action and elevates both performance and experience to a higher level.
What is the zone?
You may have experienced ‘the zone’ at some point – playing sports, climbing, playing the guitar, giving a presentation, or deep in artistic creation. You were totally immersed in the activity to the exclusion of everything else.
You felt alive. Your senses heightened. Every move was precise. Time distorted to make way for this. It’s a vigorous and enriching experience.
The zone is a peak state that’s also commonly referred to as flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a pioneering researcher in the field, states: “Flow is an optimal state of consciousness, a peak state where we both feel and perform our best.”
Csikszentmihalyi adds, “Flow is being completely involved in an activity for its own sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.”
The experience of flow can vary from person to person, but the core characteristics are:
- Intense focus on the activity
- Merging of action and awareness
- A loss of ego and self-consciousness
- A sense of confidence and control over the situation
- The experience of time distorts
- Pure enjoyment of the activity
The zone is a sweet spot of performance that happens when these factors come together. We can get in the zone at work, in a studio, in the gym or on the side of a mountain, provided the conditions are right.
One of the strongest signs of being in the zone is a sense of freedom and of authenticity.
Ken Robinson
How to get in the zone
Many activities are conducive to flow: sports, adventure, dancing, music, creative pursuits, sex, socialising, coaching and work, as long as the right conditions are met. These are: Motivation. You need to care about the task; Skill. You should be competent at the task; Challenge. The task should be challenging, but not impossible; Action focussed. You are focussed on the action, and not on the outcome. You’re doing it for the love of doing it.
So how to we reach this hallowed state? How do we get in the zone? There’s no hiding the fact that it takes practice, but you’ll get better at it. Here are 8 key steps to get in the zone:
1. Do something you love. The easiest way to enter flow is by doing something you truly enjoy, love, and are motivated to get better at. Whatever that is, it should light a fire in your belly. If you dread something, you’ll have a hard time getting lost in it.
2. Do something you are good at. You won’t get in the zone the first time you do something, or the second, or the third. It takes practice and a good-to-high level of skill to access a state of flow. Commit to the activity and get the reps in.
3. Do something important. The importance of a task influences your intensity and commitment to it. Do something that’s important to you now and will make a difference to your future.
4. Increase the challenge/risk. The task should be challenging enough to require your total commitment, but not so challenging that you can’t get absorbed in it. If there’s an element of risk also, as with climbing or diving for example, the experience of flow may be heightened further. There’s some experience required here for you to safely strike the balance.
5. Find your peak time. We all peak at different times of the day, and in different arenas. Some can go at it first thing in the morning, while others come to life at midday or beyond. Explore your physical and mental peaks and match the tasks to those times of day.
6. Eliminate the barriers. Injury, illness, noise, people and ‘too many mind’ can all interfere with the zone. Create an environment that allows total focus. Single task instead of multi-task. Avoid time wasters. That means turning devices off, working alone or with your core team, and minimising common distractions.
7. Create a ritual. When it’s time to ‘perform’ you can prepare with a series of actions that you repeat every time – a few deep breaths, a movement, a word or phrase, a vision and a sip of your favourite drink. Create some kind of sequence that helps you move through the gears and prime the body and mind. This sends a clear signal to yourself what time it is.
8. Keep practicing. The more you practice the task, the deeper the state you will access. Each of these steps will take some time to master but when you start bringing them together, magic can happen. Practice often, for a small amount of time at first, to build up the habit, then increase the duration of your practice time.
Whenever you get in the zone, make sure to embrace it. It’s there to be enjoyed. Your best ideas, your best work and your best experiences will happen when you, the action and the moment meld into one.
If you’d like to learn more about the flow state, you may also enjoy Flow: The Psychology of Happinessby Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and The Rise of Superman by Steven Kotler.
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